


Opening Gambit (Setting Up a Long Game)

by RetroactiveCon



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Creepy Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21632419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: He holds a hand above Barry’s chest, just high enough that its natural rise doesn’t reach his palm. He could kill him now, while he’s still half-formed—not quite the Flash, but no longer merely Barry Allen. One move and his heart would shear apart under Eobard's fingers. His skin tingles at the prospect, but he doesn’t allow himself to blur into motion. The man he loves and loathes, helpless under his hand, and he can do nothing because he needs him.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Opening Gambit (Setting Up a Long Game)

Eobard gazes down at the boy who will one day become his greatest enemy. Despite the intense first few days, Barry Allen has stabilized and is now healthy, if comatose. Save for the tubes running across his face, he looks as though he’s simply sleeping. 

“That was an immense amount of energy you absorbed, Flash.” Eobard rises from his wheelchair—a necessary ruse, if an annoying one—and steps to Barry’s bedside. The cameras overhead will see nothing; he set them on a loop before coming into the room, and even the technologically gifted Cisco Ramon will find no flaws in his work. To anyone viewing the tapes, Barry will have had an uninterrupted night. “I can’t wait to watch you discover exactly how much power you now wield.” 

He holds a hand above Barry’s chest, just high enough that its natural rise doesn’t reach his palm. He could kill him now, while he’s still half-formed—not quite the Flash, but no longer merely Barry Allen. One move and his heart would shear apart under Eobard's fingers. His skin tingles at the prospect, but he doesn’t allow himself to blur into motion. The man he loves and loathes, helpless under his hand, and he can do nothing because he needs him. 

That thought—Barry’s helplessness—snags in his mind, and the possibilities open up before him. This is his enemy, but it isn’t his Barry. It’s a version of him who has never heard of Eobard Thawne, a version of him who will be confused and adrift upon waking. How exquisite it will be to take him, mold him, shape him into the perfect pawn. Better yet, he knows this Barry, has watched him from a distance since he was small. He knows how sweetly, seductively innocent he is, how desperate he is to please. Eobard could make him into whatever he wishes, and Barry would beg him to do it. It’s more power than he’d ever imagined having over his nemesis, such that the thought of it leaves him dizzy. 

“All it would take is a spark.” Eobard lowers his hand to Barry’s chest. His skin burns, but it’s not a fever racing through his blood; it’s the Speed Force, reshaping his body, altering it at the molecular level. A single spark of lightning from Eobard (even in his depleted state, he could muster a spark) would activate it, waking Barry from his coma and, in all likelihood, sending him racing around the room before he knows what’s happened. Tempting as it is to watch this coltish boy stumble around at superspeed, Eobard is nothing if not patient. “But I’m not going to give you that, Mr. Allen. In a few months’ time, when the world has all but forgotten you, when you will be truly adrift upon waking…then it will be time.”

The urge to kiss him becomes overpowering. Eobard wants to kiss his lips, to see if this not-quite-Flash tastes like the man he remembers, but the breathing tube makes that impossible. (Since he’s stable, Caitlin has said, she intends to extubate him tomorrow. Eobard, knowing nothing unfortunate would come of it, agreed.) Instead, he presses a kiss to Barry’s smooth brow, a mockery of a father’s affection. That is, after all, what he is to this version of the Flash: creator, father, enemy, and most ardent admirer. 

“I’ve made you,” he murmurs against Barry’s skin, “and in time, I will destroy you. Until then, I want to be your everything, as you once were to me.” 

Barry, oblivious, sleeps on.


End file.
